School Levy Extension on Ballot

On March 11, voters within the Kuna School District will vote on whether or not to continue the school levy that has provided an extra $3.19 million to bridge the gap left in school funding reductions by the state budgets.

Kuna School Superintendent Wendy Johnson explained in a press release the history of these levies.

“Beginning in 2009, the state drastically reduced funding to districts, bringing total reductions to date to almost $9.5 million,” she said.

“In the first year of the cuts, the district formed a budget reduction committee comprised of varied stakeholders to review all facets of the district and find cost-cutting or revenue generating opportunities. Many of our patrons contributed in the process of finding ways to bridge the revenue gap. In addition to cuts, the committee recommended generating revenue through a supplemental levy. Since this time, our community has generously passed two supplemental levies that have helped bridge the gap in state funding for Kuna’s children. The $3.19 million that voters will be asked to approve or reject on March 11 is the same amount that voters approved two years ago. Idaho Code specifies that a supplemental levy expires every two years.”

She goes on to explain that with the passing of the levy the school district will continue to pay for staff and programs already in place. However, if the supplemental levy fails to pass she listed options that will be considered to reduce the budget. These include:

Make all extra-curricular activities self-sufficient and/or eliminate programs that are not self-sufficient, approximately $500,000

Reduce the number of teachers by 40 which increases class sizes of 36 or more at many grade levels, approximately $2 million

Reduce administrator, supervisor and classified employee positions, approximately $1.3 million

Draw down a majority of the district’s reserve funds, approximately $2 million

Reduce instructional calendar by approximately 8 days, approximately $800,000

Johnson said that the board could choose to implement all, none or a combination of these options.

8 comments

Have you noticed how quietly, in shadowy fashion, how they are trying to pass this in the shade?

Ask a School employee what is this money been used for, or what is the School bond exactly for, and you will hear silence. Why is it that the School has placed a “hush order” on its own employees? Seriously, do you really believe that anything good is going on when Government tries to secretly pass a tax increase?

Ask anyone who works for the School how the past 6 million was spent, and you will see that it was squandered on fattening the payroll of the Superintendent and staff.

False flags such as “we will have to fire teachers” is the typical threat to get a pity vote, when last time it was an absolute lie. The only loss of jobs was “projected new hires” and not existing staff. They create their own space shortages to say that they need new schools built and so on.

The 5 million plus bond is “fun money,” not essential money! I have seen the vast waste on so-called “new technology” that has not done a single whit to raise the IQ of a single student!

This bond is not “For the children!” It is for the staff! Imagine, the blew their last 6 million in “fun money” and now expect you to give them more! I for one, will not vote for these dishonest leaches that suck the life-blood out of our community for their own profit!

Rankings out of 50 states in spending for Idaho.
Average per-pupil spending: 49th
Salary of classroom teachers: 42nd
College enrollment after HS: 47th
College graduation rates: 44th
Attainment of BA degree (age 25 or older): 40th
Attainment of advanced degree: 42nd
– (From the National Center for Education Statistics
and the U.S. Census Bureau)

Do you really think that spending more money increases the IQ of a single student?

Do you really believe that more money is equal to a better education? Why do Americans, who spend more money on a child’s education rank only 14th world-wide?

Why not support paying for a private education for each and every student, since private school children have smaller classrooms and more attention? Simply pay for the children to go to private school if a better education is the concern and cost isn’t.

Fact: The United States spends more on a child’s education than any other developed country.

Fact: The United States students rank only 14th world-wide.

Fact: Throwing good money after bad on education does nothing to increase learning.

Unnecessary spending only lowers the standard of life of the tax payer. If facts actually mean anything, spending more than anyone else has been proven to be a waste of money. Perhaps, if we would spend more time finding out why 13 other countries accomplish educating their children better than us, and how they do it, instead of just adding more unnecessary bells and whistles to a bloated and inefficient system, we just might learn what successful educators in 13 other countries are doing that we are not, and possibly learn how to actually educate our children.

Fact: If money made our children smart, we would top the world stage instead of lagging to a pathetic 14th place!

Kuna does. Right now it consumes 60% of the property taxes. Instead of spending this money on education, they are funding extra-curricular activities with some of the money. Additionally, the State is upping their allocation.

Extra-curricular activities ARE part of a child’s education. My kids have participated in sports, choir, FFA, musicals, all kinds of things. Their EDUCATION was expanded greatly by those activities. Their education would have dry and sterile without those activities. I really don’t see all this “waste.” Any specific examples you can share?

People ask for proof, but those that could validate it have their jobs on the line. Yes, there is waste; I will not reveal very much due to people’s privacy. Tons of food is discarded yearly. Supplies (which they claim are so scarce) are at times barely used and discarded. Put up an electronic whiteboard and use permanent marker on it. I could go on, but just in this small area of the whole, amounts to tens of thousands each year.

These are a few examples (and I will not confirm how I have this knowledge). The “excuses” for the first bond, whose renewal was just denied, was based upon many deceptions and lies. Look back and see what they claimed this money would go for… did they spend all this money on what they said that they would do? Of course not! They bloated the organization, those hard workers who have not received any pay increase in a decade got nothing!

Ask yourself; Six MILLION DOLLARS! Where did it go? What did it accomplish? Quantify it and you can only arrive at the conclusion of money squandered in epidemic proportions! The school ran as well as any other school before hiring a bunch of unnecessary dead weight, and now that we have hired them, we are supposed to feel that their firing would affect children’s education!

I am far from against sports, music, and FFA. The question is, just how much of SIX MILLION DOLLARS would actually go to these programs? What percentage of the last SIX MILLION DOLLARS went to these programs?

My point is, there is much more waste that people can imagine. There are people hired that add “some” value, but only replace what teachers used to do. It has not added one point to the IQ of any student.

Secondly, one good area, such as extra-curricular programs, does not justify public theft by taxation. Students should have “some” personal investment from the students involved. That builds character and value, and enhanced personal commitment to the program. These programs are not “free.”

What did we do with extra-curricular programs before the last SIX MILLION DOLLARS? Did football, wrestling, track, basketball, and other sports exist? Was FFA not in our schools? It is utter nonsense to say that these programs will cease to exist, unless the hierarchy of the school district punishes or defunds them in favor of perpetuating unnecessary spending in areas that exist solely from their poor decisions!

Run a reasonable bond to help fund these great programs (which would not be MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, and the public would break their necks to approve it!

This last bond, nor the one it replaced had much to do with extra-curricular activities.